Originally Posted by Joe Wood
Be sure you have enough wall thickness. I once had Briley install thin walls into a 12 gauge Sauer and looking down the barrel on the outside I could see tiny bulges where the threads were cut inside. Bothered the heck out of me but few other people would have seen it.

I have also seen this several times, but not just with tubes installed by Briley. Customers who want barrels threaded for choke tubes are often uninformed about the consequences. There's a very fine line between having enough meat at the muzzles to install them, and having enough for it not to show on the outside. I have had three guns that Briley installed their thin walls into, a MX8 Perazzi which I sent to them and had them do, and a 1973 made Italian hammergun and a 103 yr. old Fox. Both the Italian gun and the Fox were that way when I bought them. There is/was no visible evidence of anything having ever been done by looking at the outside surfaces of the barrels.

My advice to anyone who communicates with any 'smith to have barrels threaded for choke tubes would be to specify clearly, more than once, and in writing, that you absolutely do not want it done if there will be the visible evidence of internal threading that Joe describes. Briley, or anyone else with the experience necessary to do this right can determine that beforehand by measuring wall thicknesses.


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